Red Clouds at Dawn
by Metallover130
Summary: A series of short drabbles about the Akatsuki. Mostly crap. I STILL don't own Naruto. Dammit.
1. Zombies

Author's Note: This is AU, in the idea that Kakuzu didn't die fighting Naruto and Kakashi.

The first thing Hidan had done after getting out of that godforsaken hole was to breathe—well, specifically it had been to hack a chunk of half-swallowed clay out of his esophagus and then cough for ten or fifteen minutes, and spit up grains of dirt.

Oh, but then! He'd taken the biggest gulp of air he'd probably ever taken in his entire life, sucked the precious oxygen in and savored it, forcing what was left of his throat to pass air through over and over even though it hurt like hell and there were still all kinds of things lodged in there that scratched and stabbed, but _Jashin_ did it feel good to just breathe again!

Kakuzu, of course, had to ruin his fun and start complaining about how long it took him to dig Hidan up with only his two arms, since all of his hearts had been destroyed but one, and didn't the use of any of his beasts.

"Hurry up and sew me back together!" Hidan had demanded the second Kakuzu picked him up by the hair. "There's some weird shit crawling around in me, and I want it out _now_!"

"I've been at this for two days," Kakuzu said flatly, and he sat Hidan down on a rock, and left him there while _he_ proceeded to take a nap, which no amount of yelling could rouse him from. Hidan, who had already spent the past forty-eight hours in the ground, didn't want to wait any longer than he already had to get put back in order, but Kakuzu was the only one who could fix him and if his lazy ass was asleep, Hidan had no choice but to sit for another six hours until Kakuzu was rested enough to begin the process of turning the puzzle that was Hidan back into a complete picture.

It might have been easier, had that Nara brat not blasted him into bits. Kakuzu spent half a day scouring through dirt and mud for missing pieces of Hidan, finding fingers, toes, organ bits and bones in all sorts of places. It wasn't until sunrise the next morning that he was positive he found them all, but this was only the beginning.

For one, Hidan had been _exploded_. The edges of his flesh—even where they had begun to heal—were ragged and burned making them hard to connect. Not only that, but because he'd been so thoroughly torn asunder his insides had been left open to the elements, and so even before the sewing could begin Kakuzu had to clean him out, flush away the dirt and bugs and even some small plants that had begun to take root deep in between his muscles. It was like hemming a shirt and tending a garden at the same time.

And two, once Hidan was back together, he couldn't be moved. They were stuck in the forest for nearly a week, vulnerable, tired, and unprepared. Hidan's bitching was unceasing, and Kakuzu got sick of hearing it after a while so when Hidan finally fell asleep he sewed his mouth shut—needless to say, the alarm and fury on his face the next morning was priceless: not a title often given by a man so consumed by greed, and it was almost worth all the work just to see him so pissed with no way to retaliate.

"I suppose you'll try to get me back for that after you've healed," he said some time later, when Hidan had quieted down. The zealot had gone mysteriously still, the only sound or motion his constant, heavy breathing through his nose. When Kakuzu spoke he didn't look at him, but he mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like _You bet your ugly ass I will_. Kakuzu nodded politely, and went to stand over his incapacitated partner, and folded his arms across his tan chest riddled with hundreds of stitches. "Well, since that's the case, you ought to know something before you get any stupid ideas in that imbecilic head of yours." He crouched down, so that they could see eye-to-eye. They were close enough to kiss. With a hand still crusted with dried mud, Kakuzu patted Hidan's pale cheek, almost fondly, and smiled. "Just remember, I didn't _have_ to dig you up. I could have left you here for all eternity. Can you imagine that, Hidan? Hundreds and hundreds of years, never rotting, just lying there buried under the dirt, breathing it in while all kinds of other life chewed their way into you to make nests and breed? That could have been you life, until the end of all time."

Hidan didn't say a word. He stared up at Kakuzu with silently pleading eyes, as if to say, _No_. _Anything but that_. The look of total mortification was enough for Kakuzu, and he pat Hidan one more time, still smiling, and sauntered back to where he'd been sitting before. Later that night, when Hidan was asleep again, Kakuzu took the stitch out of his mouth.

They left the woods the next day. Kakuzu made no comment on it, but Hidan had picked up two new habits. He'd started _breathing_ more frequently than he ever had before, which was mildly annoying and very disturbing, but his other habit was so hilarious that Kakuzu could forgive the other.

From that day on, Hidan never spoke first in a conversation, and he never did get Kakuzu back for sewing his lips shut.


	2. Family

Everyone in the Akatsuki, some way or the other, was a freak. Some would beg to differ at such a label, or push it onto another, or fervently deny themselves to be any such thing.

Deidara was one of those types. Because he was an artist he was very critical, but more so of himself than anyone, and if his "unique" features were pointed out in anything even subtly negative he'd go straight for the detonating clay. You could make comments about how feminine he looked, the way he talked, or even his art (maybe), but if someone were to make commentary on his hand-mouths the last thing they heard in their life was "_Katsu!_"

Hidan was only sensitive to insults if they affected his God, the worshiping of his God, or the rituals performed in his God's name. He was one of the weirder ones himself, what with the whole "undying" thing, which got to be very disturbing whenever his head came off (as it was wont to do with Hidan) and it was still screaming obscenities when its body was twelve feet away.

Kakuzu didn't appear to care either way, and even by Akatsuki standards he was peculiar (and not just because he hoarded everything, be it money or hearts). Whatever he was or how he came to be no one knew, and no one asked, because the falls nin had the most infamous temper of them all and though the subject of his existence didn't aggravate him your asking did. There were three kinds of people Kakuzu didn't like: poor people, stupid people, and people who wasted his time with trivialities. Those sorts of people usually ended up contributing to his collection.

Kisame, well . . . you really only had to take one look at the six-foot-seven beast of man to know why he stuck out in a crowd. He had _blue_ skin. That alone was freaky, even before you counted the scales, face-gills, and shark-teeth. Then again, appearance-wise, nobody came close to beating Zetsu, who was a walking billboard for all freakdom. Green hair, half-black half-white, giant Venus fly traps coming out of him, and all those odd yellow spots on his skin. More than once his fellow Akatsuki had sat around together and tried to figure out just what they were for; Itachi, the most analytical, said it was probably better they _didn't_ know, and there was unanimous agreement among all parties.

Sasori didn't make his differences obvious, and no one in Akatsuki knew he was a puppet until the day Hidan had accidentally started a grease-fire on the stove and set Sasori on fire. He got his robe off in time to spare himself the humiliation of death by bacon, but ended up making it blindingly obvious to everyone sitting at the table why he didn't customarily join them at meals. Needless to say the robe was ruined, breakfast was ruined, and Hidan was never allowed to cook again.

Itachi himself wasn't strange to his comrades in his appearance (unless you counted being very, very pretty as freakish, and that made Deidara double the freak then) but in his nature. The Akatsuki were evil, no doubt about it, but everyone had a human side, and to most of them the cold-hearted way in which Uchiha had murdered his entire family scared the hell out of them. Kill an enemy, yes, or kill a stranger, yes to that too—but to run the blade through the belly of the man and woman who brought you into this world . . . that took a truly inhuman person.

Though defected, Orochimaru still garnished conversation among the remaining members, usually when Deidara wasn't around since they had once loosely been "friends" and he was _beyond_ sensitive to that topic. Orochimaru had been a freak in every sense of the word, and so even the rather preternatural members still around figured it was better he left the organization when he did, rather than hanging around. Itachi got at least one high-five from Kisame for cutting off Orochimaru's hand, which the mist nin insisted it would have been hilarious to keep.

Tobi was a mystery. Only Deidara, who had worked the closest with him, knew anything about him; he affirmed that what made Tobi the strangest was not his uncanny ability to never take a blow even when struck directly, but the fact he wore a mask. _All the time_. "He never takes it off, ever," Deidara insisted. "I spent two weeks tooling around the woods with him trying to get back, and he never once removed it, un." Apparently that was weird enough for him, and this was coming from a man who had a another entire mouth situated where he ought to have had a nipple.

As for Konan and Pein there was no discussion, period. Some simply didn't care, like Kakuzu, who wasn't interested in their back stories so long as he was getting paid. Others, like Itachi, knew it was better to stay in the dark so far as their employers went. Sometimes, ignorance _was_ bliss, after all. Then again you had someone like Hidan who was insatiably curious—and Tobi would immaturely say this was because Konan was the only member who didn't _have_ a member—and just had to know. Of course, even an immortal like him knew it was stupid to prod too much at a man like Pein, or a woman like Konan, who carried with them twice the aura of anyone else in Akatsuki and stunk triple of dark, metallic blood.

Freaks, the whole lot, no doubt about it. For whatever reason they were rogue, unwanted, hated or despised, and every one had a certain something that made you never want to happen upon them when there were no obvious escape routes.

But, all in all, none of them would have it any other way.

And they said you couldn't pick your family.


	3. Hero

Uchiha Itachi was a hero.

He, single-handedly, had saved the entire village of Konohagakure. In one night he had rescued Hidden Leaf, and spared its citizens a fourth bloody ninja war.

He'd done it alone. It was a job that only he could have done, and he did it well, with his customary taciturn stoicism and cold-hearted efficiency.

Only, Konoha didn't know he was a hero.

The Akatsuki didn't know he was a hero.

Only five people besides himself knew he was—one had taken it to the grave in battle, three were preparing to take it to their graves in old age, and the last was saving that piece of information for when Itachi took it to his.

Itachi, though he knew he was a hero, didn't like to be called it and never once considered himself one. If what he had done was heroic, then Itachi would be a villain for the rest of his life. He'd become a hero because he'd wanted to protect his village—it was what heroes did—but his love for his village was beginning to dwindle.

After all, how could he love a village that made a man a hero for killing his own family?


	4. Teamwork

Hidan and Kakuzu were probably the best functioning team within the Akatsuki. That wasn't to say that they got along the best, or were the closest, or were even the most skilled. Hidan had the slowest attack speed of anyone in the organization, and the worst aim. Kakuzu had uncontrollable bloodlust that made him a danger to anyone he worked with, spoke to, or occupied the same space as.

Hidan was a foul-mouthed, bratty, whiner with a God-complex as wide as the heavens, and more annoying than if it was his own God-complex he _was_ a God-complex. There never was anyone as devoted to their religion as Hidan, and he took up the better part of both his and his partner's time with his absurd and lengthy rituals. Kakuzu might have found them hilarious, if they weren't so _boring_. Honestly, he could only stare at a man impaled through the chest for so long before it wasn't funny anymore, and just irritating, and he never thought he'd think that about gore.

Kakuzu was a cheap, money-hungry, murderous bastard who had no care for anyone save for himself, and just how much currency he could fit inside the generous pockets of his robe. He hadn't been elected or even considered for the position of Treasurer of the Akatsuki; he had earned the title simply because bounties were his passion. He salivated at the thought of paper money crinkling between his fingers, and the sound of coins in his palm got him giddy. Hidan was a little sickened by someone who fawned over cash the way Kakuzu did (this coming from a zealot, of all people), the way he worshiped and chased after money, so totally hypnotized by it. Hidan didn't think he'd ever seen so in need of a good fuck in his entire life.

So, no, they didn't really belong together; not from that standpoint, anyway. Kakuzu had a notoriously short temper, and Hidan really liked to piss him off—they were a horrible match, in any case, save for one:

They couldn't die.

More specifically _Hidan_ couldn't die, Kakuzu was just a pain in the ass to kill. The real key to their phenomenal teamwork was that Kakuzu, the "real doer" as Hidan called him, could attack however he pleased whenever he pleased, and never had to spare a second thought for his companion's welfare. In fact most of their battle strategies involved them attacking at the same time, Kakuzu attacking right through Hidan, the silver-haired man completely unaffected.

It was a partnership born from convenience. Kakuzu had the nasty habit of slaughtering all his comrades, and Hidan was immortal. This was Kakuzu's point of view, anyway. Hidan found the greatest convenience to be that when any given piece of him got lopped off Kakuzu could sew it back on. Like amputation waiting to happen, Hidan constantly relied on his giant walking spool of thread.

Ah, compatriotism. It warmed two of Kakuzu's five hearts.


End file.
